Herbert Druitt was born in Christchurch, then in Hampshire, to James and Matilda Druitt. He trained as a lawyer, but was essentially a man of leisure, putting his energies into brass rubbing and collecting an enormous range of archaeological and historical material which he hoarded in various family-owned properties around the town.

He was the only son of a namesake father, who was prominent lawyer in the county, Clerk of the Peace to Winchester Court, Deputy Clerk to the Bishopric of Winchester, and Receiver General of Land Taxes in Hampshire. He owned New House Ropley, (still standing, renamed Ropley House) built by an earlier owner in the…

He was a rare example of someone born to wealth and position who wrote about his ancestors (rather than asking others to do so) with a frankness and objectivity that is rare in family histories of the great and good. For the last three years of his life he held the title 8th Baron Sherborne,…

Edward Gibbon is best known for The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire published in six volumes by 1788, but he also served in the military and in Parliament, predominantly with Hampshire connections.  By the end of his life, he was considered ‘a giant of the Enlightenment’, his work praised for…

Born in London, by occupation he was a ‘collector of inland revenue’ (1901 census). Often quoted is his enormous compilation of 828 pages of local records, Extracts from Records in the possession of the Municipal Corporation of the Borough of Portsmouth, published by the Corporation in 1891. There were appendices on a ‘serious dispute’ amongst…

Harry Gidden was on the staff of King Edward VI School in Southampton for over 42 years from 1883. He had previously been a pupil at the School since 1879. Retiring in 1925, a year or so earlier he had been awarded a PhD by London University ‘for his noteworthy work on the charters of…

Born at the family mansion Englefield House, situated near Reading, Sir Henry was the eldest son of the Sixth Baronet, Sir Henry Englefield and his second wife Catherine (nee Buck). In 1778, aged 26, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in the following year a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Born at Halstead in Essex, Gilbert moved to Southampton with his parents during the 1850s. He married Mary Emma Stanesby in 1867 and they continued to reside in the town for much of the remainder of the 19th century, although for a short period the couple lived in Wandsworth. While in Southampton Gilbert established a…

The Rev George Engleheart achieved national prominence as one of the greatest ever breeders of daffodils, but as a ‘highly cultured man, well read and appreciative of everything that is beautiful’ he also found time to indulge in the classical archaeology of his local Hampshire parishes.

William Gilpin was a Church of England cleric, schoolmaster, artist and author. He is perhaps best known as a travel writer, and one who originated the idea of the ‘picturesque’.